DevOps: Sea Change to Power Innovation

Traditionally, Development set out to build and deploy the capabilities the business needed, while Operations kept the infrastructure stable and fast. Development teams bundled new functionality and system improvements into periodic updates to appease the Operations teams’ resistance to any change that could disrupt system operations.

Operational Overview of IT – Before Digital

Department

Functional Perspective

Responsibility

Timeframe

Development

Silo

Build the
functionality and capabilities the business needs

Quarters to
years

Operations

Silo

Keep the
infrastructure running smoothly with as little change as possible

Ongoing

This chart captures the roles and responsibilities of Development and Operations groups in a traditional IT organization.

In the digital age, the diametrically opposed goals of Development and Operations are falling away. A united DevOps process and supporting culture, which requires both sides to see beyond their respective functional silos, unites IT staffers behind a single, shared goal: to enable the business to compete and win.

DevOps explained: This chart shows how the newly melded DevOps model unites IT organizations in the digital environment.

While definitions of DevOps’ mission and culture vary from organization to organization, Rural Sourcing aligns itself with Gartner Group’s view of DevOps in the digital age:

DevOps represents a change in IT culture, focusing on rapid IT service delivery through the adoption of agile, lean practices in the context of a system-oriented approach. DevOps emphasizes people (and culture), and seeks to improve collaboration between operations and development teams. DevOps implementations utilize technology — especially automation tools that can leverage an increasingly programmable and dynamic infrastructure from a life cycle perspective.

IT organizations’ move to a DevOps model and culture refocuses technologists’ view away from technical infrastructure onto the needs of the business. This sea change in the way IT approaches its work requires speed, not for speed’s sake, but for competitive advantage. Through microservices, DevOps organizations can leverage digital tools and technologies to engage IT staffers and compress the speed-to-revenue cycle.

To learn more about how microservices-led innovation can improve staff productivity and application quality, click here to download the newest executive white paper from Rural Sourcing, “Microservices: Fast Path to Digitally Required Innovation.”